Created in 1981 at Fontodi by 21-year-old Giovanni Manetti and consultant oenologist Franco Bernabei, Flaccianello della Pieve was one of the first Super Tuscans. The newly released 2023 vintage marks 42 years of this seminal wine, which has become a standard-bearer for quality not just for Fontodi, but Tuscany as a whole, renowned for its power, depth and remarkable ageing potential.
The Super Tuscan wines were born out of crisis. The area under vine in Chianti Classico doubled in the 1970s, and there was a huge surplus of wine on the market, demand was much lower than production, and grape prices collapsed. Quality was not good enough, so producers had to look to the future rather than the past, which was enshrined in the DOC regulations.
As Giovanni explains, “A small group of producers, without even consulting each other, decided to break the rules and make something different. No white grapes, reduced yields, French barriques, much more care over processes like malolactic fermentation and ageing.”
“That was the birth of the Super Tuscans: Antinori with ‘Tignanello’, ‘Le Pergole Torte’ from Montevertine, ‘Percarlo’ from San Giusto a Rentennano, ‘Cepparello’ from Isole e Olena and ‘Flaccianello’. With the single exception of ‘Sassicaia’, the Super Tuscan movement began in Chianti Classico. It was a kind of revolution, a reaction to crisis, and the wines were immediately successful, showing the potential for quality in our territory.”
100% Sangiovese wines were not allowed under the regulations at the time, which stated that Chianti Classico wines must include 15% white grapes, so Flaccianello was originally labelled ‘Vino da Tavola di Panzano’.
Flaccianello was originally a single-vineyard wine, made from the ‘Flaccianello della Pieve’ plot, which takes its name from the Pieve di San Leolino Romanesque church overlooking the Fontodi estate. Since 2001, when the original site was replanted, Flaccianello has been a blend of the best plots on the estate, selected each vintage by Giovanni. These tend to be the high elevation plots, such as ‘Pecille’, ‘Il Poggio’ and ‘La Cappellina’ at up to 500 metres above sea level on especially stony soils that limit the natural vigour of Sangiovese.
The winemaking has also evolved over the years. While the first vintages were aged for two years in new French oak barriques, Giovanni now prefers to use less new oak and a combination of barriques and larger format 25- to 50-hectolitre ‘botti’ to enhance the expression of sense of place and preserve freshness.
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